


Courage

by captainamergirl



Category: All My Children, General Hospital, One Life to Live
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Claudia the badass MF, Crossovers & Fandom Fusions, F/M, ZachAttack
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-08
Updated: 2020-07-08
Packaged: 2021-03-05 00:01:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,914
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25145101
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/captainamergirl/pseuds/captainamergirl
Summary: "Stop running from your own happiness," Zach said.But did Claudia Zacchara have the courage to actually be happy? Was happiness even possible for someone like her?
Relationships: Claudia Zacchara/Zach Slater, Other Relationship Tags to Be Added
Kudos: 1





	Courage

**Chapter 1**  
  
_Too many secrets._ There were just too many secrets surrounding her and this one was sure to get her _killed._  
  
“Are you sure, Doctor?” Claudia Zacchara asked, cupping her still impossibly taut stomach. “I’m not paying you to make guesses here.”  
  
Kelly Lee, to her credit, didn’t look intimidated. Most people quivered at Claudia’s stiletto-boot clad feet but Kelly either was stupidly not afraid or just hid it well. “It’s true, Ms. Zacchara,” Kelly insisted. “The test doesn’t lie. You’re about six weeks along.”  
  
Claudia quickly did the math in her head and her stomach began to somersault anew. Six weeks? That meant …  
  
She shook her head. “Six weeks…” She murmured. “You’re sure?”  
  
“Yes,” Kelly insisted. “Wait till you tell your husband. I am sure Mr. Corinthos will be thrilled.”  
  
“Oh he’ll be something alright,” Claudia said in a low voice. When he discovered that she was six weeks pregnant, he would do the math too. Sonny may not be bright but he wasn’t totally stupid either. Six weeks ago he’d been down at his island romancing that Latina twenty-year-old girl of his that she wasn’t supposed to know about. While he was allowed to have copious affairs, she was expected to sit around and twiddle her thumbs and wait patiently for him to return and acquiesce to “servicing” her. He was a fucking idiot and she hated him. However, against her will, totally against who she was, she played the dutiful wife because her life depended on it. Now her baby’s life depended on her being a good little wifey too.  
  
Her stomach churned still more. What had she become? Someone she didn’t know, someone who disgusted her, that was for sure– and all to keep a nasty little secret. She really hated being Sonny’s arm candy. That’s not who she was. She was so much better than that. She could bring him to his knees with one kick to the groin; she could break his kneecaps with that Louisville Slugger she always kept nearby. She could kill him. She’d had her chance to annihilate him once and instead she’d sent a moron to do the job and he’d missed, taking down Sonny’s adoptive thirteen-year-old son instead.  
  
She shuddered and the crazy thing was, she wasn’t the shuddering type. She had never been afraid of anything or anyone in her life but now she had so much to worry about. Sonny would kill her for cheating on him. Imagine if he also found out that she had put his beloved child into a coma…  
  
She shook her head and turned a glare on Kelly. “You’re not going to tell anyone.”  
  
“Excuse me?”  
  
“You heard me,” Claudia said in a low yet menacing voice. “You’re not going to tell anyone when this baby was supposedly conceived. In fact, you’re going to doctor all the records to say differently. And if anyone dares to ask, you will tell them this baby is four weeks old and not a second older. Am I clear?”  
  
“Ms. Zacchara –“ Kelly trembled visibly now, finally realizing how much trouble she could be in. “Doctor-patient confidentially prevents me …”  
  
“Yeah remember that you could lose your license if you say a word. Hell, maybe you’ll lose something else vital too. Now be a good little OB and prescribe me some vitamins or something and then go and fix any paperwork you have on my supposed due date. Am I understood?”  
  
“Perfectly,” Kelly said stiffly. “I’ll get those prescriptions drawn up right now.” She was visibly shaking and Claudia snapped at her to pull it together. Kelly straightened her spine and nodded, before dutifully walking slowly and purposefully from the exam room.  
  
Claudia let out a long sigh and her arms came to rest across her taut abdomen. Soon her fingers took to dancing, as if by their own volition, on her flat belly. “Hey, kid,” she said. “The smart thing would be to pretend you didn’t exist but then I haven’t done the smart thing in ages. So why not complicate things a little more and fudge some dates to give my husband dearest a child that actually belongs to someone else?”  
  
She closed her eyes for a moment, picturing Zach Slater heated, stormy gaze on her the last time they had made love. Claudia didn’t _do_ love but that’s what it had felt like to her. She had felt appreciated, wanted, needed – whole even - in that moment. Emotions she had never experienced before. Zach had even told her that he was in love with her. In response though, she had just turned her back on him in the suddenly cold bed and feigned not hearing him.  
  
XoXoXo  
  
Claudia emerged from the exam room a few minutes later. She had prescriptions in hand and was so absorbed in trying to stuff them into her big black, leather bag that she never saw him coming. She really was falling down on her game…  
  
The papers went flying every which way as did her purse as she smacked into none other than the man she was most hoping to avoid.  
  
“Son of a bitch!” she snapped at Zach Slater. “Watch where the fuck you’re going!”  
  
“Nice to see you too, Claudia,” Zach said with a shit-eating grin she wanted to wipe from his face - with a pointed dagger. “How have you been?”  
  
“Shut the fuck up!” Claudia hissed and disentangled from his hot embrace as she dived for the papers on the ground. Zach got to one of them first and held it away from her as he read the name on it.  
  
“Prenatal vitamins,” he said in a low voice. “I recognize the name from when Kendall was pregnant.”  
  
“Excuse me? What the hell gives you the right –“  
  
“I think I have all the rights in the world, considering that child is probably mine.”  
  
Claudia wanted to claw his eyes out but instead turned to look and see if anyone was within ear shot. She spotted Nurse Epiphany Johnson moving down the hall and she quickly yanked Zach by the arm into an abandoned exam room. She bolted the door after them.  
  
“You mother fucker,” Claudia spat. “You don’t go around saying things like that.”  
  
Zach leaned against the counter, crossing his arms and watching her closely with a look that left her trembling – if only on the inside. “Is that my baby, Claudia? Tell me the truth. I have a right to know.”  
  
“No, no way,” Claudia said, crossing her own arms. “This baby is only four weeks old so it’s completely impossible.”  
  
“Is it?” Zach asked, looking very doubtful.  
  
Claudia nodded. “Yes.”  
  
“I think you’re lying,” Zach said. “I think you know very well that I’m the baby’s father. I think you’ve fudged the dates- on purpose - to hide the fact that while Sonny was at his little island sexing up some little woman, his wife was in bed with me.”  
  
Claudia rolled her eyes. “You have a really high opinion of yourself. Apparently your sperm is so powerful that it waited around two weeks just to knock me up…”  
  
“Well, that’s a good theory and certainly, it would be possible –“ He winked at her which drove her mad. “I still think though that child was made during the week Sonny was gone. Don’t you remember, Claudia, how we couldn’t keep our hands off each other - how I made you so incredibly wet?” He was circling her now like a predatory animal and while she should have brought him to his knees, could have very well done so, she couldn’t bring herself to move or so much as breathe. His hand came to finally rest at her trim hip and she sucked in a greedy breath then.  
  
“You want me, Claudia Zacchara, and I want you. I want you to leave that bastard of a husband and come be with me. We’ll raise our child together; be a family.”  
  
That killed the mood and she found her voice finally. “Fuck you. You have some grand delusions, Zach. I am with Sonny and I’m staying with Sonny and we’re raising this baby together. You can go fuck yourself if you don’t like it.”  
  
“Why are you so afraid to be with me, Claudia? If you’re worried Sonny will hurt you, I can assure you that I won’t let that happen. I’ve dealt with much bigger thugs.”  
  
“Afraid?” Claudia scoffed. “Sorry, no. I am not some little shrinking violet. I’m not like any of the women you’ve been with.”  
  
“That’s true. The fact is that you’re strength is one of the things that I love most about you.”  
  
Claudia trembled in response and she hated it. Hated the way he got to her. “Stop saying that shit. You don’t love me. You don’t know the meaning of the word. And for the last time, I’m not scared of anything.”  
  
“You don’t have the courage to leave Sonny. I know you don’t love him so why do you stay with him? Just to please your father? You never will make Anthony happy so stop trying and just be the free woman you were meant to be.”  
  
“Free? I’ll be stuck with you, but I’ll supposedly be free?”  
  
“See, I would never tie you down. I would let you be exactly who you are because I adore who you are. I just wish you believed that.”  
  
“Well, sorry I don’t. I am just an easy lay for you like every other man. And for the record, I don’t love you. I never did. I never will. You just happened to be there when I needed an itch scratched.”  
  
“Of course…” Why did he sound so doubtful? She really should pull out her trusty glock and end him right there. But something stayed her hand. Something that went against her every instinct. She loved him too. Damn him, she loved him too.  
  
She jabbed a finger forcefully into his sternum. “Stay the fuck away from me, Zach. Pretend that little week of sneaking around never happened. Wipe it from your memory because it will never happen again. I am staying married to Sonny, I am having his kid, and that’s the end of it. Don’t mess with me again because next time I won’t hesitate to blow your fucking brains out.”  
  
Zach shook his head as she stomped for the door. “Eventually, Claudia, you’re going to have to stop running. Stop running from your own happiness.”  
  
Claudia shook her head, gave him the finger and clicking the lock, yanked open the door and stalked out. She made it to the limo before she felt tears burning the back of her eyes. She never cried. It wasn’t in her nature to show weakness in any form, especially when it could be used against her. But as she climbed into the limo and commanded Milo to drive, just fucking drive, she felt a pathetic tear roll down her cheek. She quickly put up the partition between her and the youngest Giambetti and sunk back into the leather cushions. Another tear came and she resolved that that was it – no more would be shed after that. She simply wrote the feelings off as hormones.  
  
The limo pulled away from the curb just as she saw Zach emerge from the hospital. She watched him crossing the street, looking like someone had kicked his favorite puppy and she felt sick. She quickly rolled down her window and threw up.


End file.
